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The Rocky Mountain poems

July 26, 2010

In the summer of 1973, as a long Steelworkers strike dragged on, I deserted my comrades on the picket line and made my second trip east to the Rocky Mountains. The year before I had cycled there from the West Coast; this time I hitch-hiked. I met a friend on the McLeod River, a major […]

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How randonneurs helped shape the Tour de France

July 22, 2010

“The men waved their hats, the ladies their umbrellas. One felt they would have liked to touch the steel muscles of the most courageous champions since antiquity. Who will carry off the first prize, entering the pantheon where only supermen may go?” ~L’Auto July 1, 1903. Octave Lapize pushes his bike on the Tourmalet, 1910 […]

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The aged of cycling

July 19, 2010

Bent But Unbowed The art of Bonsai — a blend of horticulture and design — requires patience, planning and dedication over the long term. Results don’t come overnight. It’s not a stretch to see the similarity to training for cycling, especially as one grows older. As I tottered around the garden yesterday, pruning my bonsai, […]

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Putting down Canadian roots

July 14, 2010

Stranger in a Strange Land Today is the 45th anniversary of my arrival in Canada. In 1965, I landed at Vancouver International Airport (in a DC-8), with my parents and siblings, the fourth generation of my family to emigrate from the UK. My maternal great-grandfather John Jones homesteaded early in the century at Golden, British Columbia. […]

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Victoria’s Ryder Hesjedal brings the Tour de France to Canada

July 12, 2010

“Ouch….tough day! thanks to the boys…pretty pleased headin into the rest day!!!Not a bad spot to chill ! Ryder Hesjedal Photo:YellowMonkey/Blnguyen That was Ryder Hesjedal’s post-ride tweet, after a grueling day in the Alps yesterday, on the 8th stage of the Tour de France. The second day in the mountains—from Station des Rousses to Morzine—included […]

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How to protect your blog from subversive influences

July 8, 2010

If you’ve been reading newspapers recently (I know, who bothers?), you get the idea that people hate the Black Bloc. Know what I hate? Writer’s Bloc. The Writer’s Bloc should be confined to a cage somewhere they don’t threaten peaceful, creative people who are just trying to get their work done. That’s the thing with […]

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